I thought I saw a movement in the dense brush to my right. I stopped and called out, “The Little One!”, but no one responded. The frozen icy silence was all around us. No rustling of the leaves, no buzzing of insects; it suddenly felt like we were wandering inside a theatrical stage set. We went around a fog bank sticking out of the hot swamp and began ascending the slope of a hill. Actually, it was a sand dune, held in place by the bushes. The higher we went, the harder the sand under our feet became. When we reached the crest, we looked around. The ship was hidden by the fog, but we could see the landing strip well. It surface was brightly glistening in the sun; the ball left behind was a lonely black dot in the middle of it; bulky Tom was uncertainly hovering over it trying to
